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mandag 31. august 2015

This August marked the 70 year anniversary for the end of WWII, the very first atomic bomb testing, and the first (and hopefully last!) time nuclear weapons were used against humans.

This picture is of Trinity - the first ever test of an atomic bomb/nuclear weapon. The picture is taken around 1 hundredth of a second after detonation of the bomb. The big grey thing is actually a fireball, which is around 200 meter in diameter. Inside the pink circles are trees. Trinity was tested on July 16 1945, and it was the same kind of bomb as the one in Nagsaki (on August 9 1945) - called Fat Man - except it was a little bit smaller.

Little Boy was a uranium bomb (made of highly enriched uranium), and Fat Man was a plutonium bomb (made of plutonium that they produced from natural uranium in a reactor). Together they destroyed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and killed around 130 000-250 000 people...

When an atomic bomb explodes, the nuclear force is released, and that is why they are so powerful - and even though it is a horrible and really scary device, it is also extremely fascinating (the nuclear force, that mostly is responsible for keeping all nuclei everywhere together, IS fascinating). Often people believe that nuclear weapons are dangerous because of radioactivity, but it is mainly the extreme explosive force, and the heat that kills people - not radiation.

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Last
year I went to Japan to make the short film Sushi and Nuclear (Sushi og
Kjernekraft). Going to Hiroshima and actually see the Atomic Bomb Dome
made a very strong impression... You can see the English version of the
film HERE, and the Norwegian version HERE.

fredag 28. august 2015

It’s been a long time since I did a “10 facts” blog post (last one was
about heavy water) - too long, I think, so it’s about time I do it again
now ;)

I can’t promise there’ll one every week (I’ve tried those every week kind of blog posts before, and there’s always some reason - like my PhD work - why it’s difficult to see it through ), but it would have been fun if 10 facts could be like a Friday thing. Anyway, we’ll see how it goes, but today is Fission Friday; here are ten facts about fission:

fission is when a (heavy) nucleus splits into two (lighter) nuclei

an example of fission is when uranium-235 is hit by one neutron and becomes barium-144, krypton-90, and 2 free neutrons (same number of particles before and after fission: 1+235 = 144+90+2 = 236 :D)

the light nuclei (like barium and krypton) are called fission products

fission can be induced, which means that it happens because a neutron hits the nucleus (like in the picture) - a little bit like the neutron is a knife that cuts the nucleus into two pieces <3

fission can be spontaneous, which means it just happens - no neutron or other particle hitting the nucleus - the nucleus just suddenly splits

fission is my favourite decay mode (I think) <3<3<3

a nucleus that will fission when it’s hit by a neutron is called (a) fissile (nucleus)

the energy that is released in fission (when one nucleus splits) is 200 mega electron volts - which is the same as if 50 million carbon atoms burns and produces CO2 (yes, 1 versus 50 million to get the same amount of energy!)

most of the energy released in fission comes from kineticc energy of the fission products - which is energy from motion of the fission products (they are moving fast away from each other)

I think the energy release in fission is really really fascinating

If you think it's a good idea to do more "10 facts" blog posts, please tell me what you what you want to read about <3

Ok, I gotta run now, to catch my flight back to Oslo - since I've been giving a talk about motivation for science in Bodø today. If you follow me on Snapchat (sunnivarose), you can see the super cool LEGO rose i got after the talk (the talk was for First Lego League, so it was 100% right to get a rose made out of LEGO :D).

torsdag 27. august 2015

Tonight I'm super excited to tell you that I'm going to give a talk at TEDxBergen in just a little bit more than a month - 3rd of October that is!!!

The topic of the conference in Bergen this year is "The (Im)possible redefined", and they describe it like this on their web pages:

This topic addresses the human tendency of
creating boundaries in our heads, which are shaped by what we know and
what we can imagine. These boundaries are what we believe is "possible".
This topic addresses not only the boundaries that are possible but,
indirectly, impossible. With these thoughts we hope to create an
inspiring TEDx event and to invite speakers that redefine the
(im)possible throughout a broad variety of domains, such as science,
nature, lifestyle and technology.

They asked me to be one of the speakers just the other day, so I have barely had any time to think about what I should/want to talk about this time, and I thought why don't I ask you guys for help: WHAT SHOULD I TALK ABOUT? I have some ideas already, but it would be so much fun if you had some thoughts, and/or maybe suggestions for a title - so please help! :)

I've talked at two other TEDx events earlier - the first one was in Oslo in 2013, and then at Institut Le Rosey (outside of Geneva) in 2014. In Oslo I gave the talk How bad is it really? Nuclear technology - facts and feelings - see it HERE, and at Le Rosey I gave the talk Why science should be more pink - see it HERE.

torsdag 20. august 2015

This morning I went to a lecture (computational physics) for the first time in 2.5 years, and after that (not in the course, but during a break) I learned a new fun fact: the black holes in the center of galaxies are not like "normal" black holes...

I actually sort of thought that a black hole is a black hole - that they are just what you get when a really big star dies and collapses. But then I learned that the black holes in the center of all galxies - that we call "supermassive" black holes - are much bigger than the "normal" ones, and they can't be created by the collapsing of a star. Actually, we don't even know how they are created, we just know they're different...!

We do know they are huge, though; their masses are more than 1 million suns together; and the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky
Way galaxy (which is called Sagittarius A) has a mass equal to about 4
million suns - that's a lot ;)

onsdag 19. august 2015

Yes, it's actually true, the University really is like a home (or at least my second home) to me - and after one week in Berkeley, one week when Alexandra was sick with chickenpox and couldn't go to kindergarden, and one day in Stavanger, it feel fantastic to be back on track in Oslo! It's so awesome to see my (second) home full of new, and old, students again, and I feel so privileged to have a job that I can call home. Love it <3 <3 <3

So I'm just back in my (messy) office, and back with my beloved uranium (pep talk with supervisor tomorrow morning). I should really write more about what I'm working on right now - only problem is that it takes time...and I also want to share some of what I said in my speech at the University in Stavanger on Monday (very honored to be the mains speaker at the opening this year!) - maybe I have to do that tomorrow?

Anyway, it's soon bedtime here - I have to be much better at getting enough sleep, and to get up early in the mornings, which means going to bed early ;)

torsdag 6. august 2015

Good morning everyone <3 Day two of this California/Berkeley trip has just started, and so far I'm very happy :)

Yesterday I "finished" the first part of the uranium analysis (which is to find the nuclear level density of uranium-234) - that I wrote about in my last blog post - and started the second part of the analysis (which is to find the gamma ray strength function of uranium-234). The picture above show the very first result of my gamma ray strength data (the squares - both black and white) plotted together with different data from the big nuclear data bases. When I wrote "plot" and this appeared I actually screamed with excitement and joy, and hugged Cecilie, who was sitting next to me and helping me, because it looks soooo pretty - even before I've started to "tweak" my data to fit with the ones from the data bases (the ones on the right side of the plot - the little triangles).

The goal of this trip is btw to put these two properties of the nucleus (the nuclear level denisty and the gamma ray strength function) into simulations of different reactors (that uses thorium based fuel) and see if they affect the results of the simulations - when we compare to standard simulations where we don't do anything about these nuclear properties :) *excited*

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Below are a couple of pictures from yesterday and today. The first one, of Anders, is probably more like what you would imagine when I say "pure joy"...;) He has just rented a nice car and is on his way to Palo Alto as we speak - he is also excited. (Actually kind of wish i could go with him, but I'm on my way to the lab now, with Cecilie - and that will of course also be fun...but in a quite different way :P )

beautiful morning at Berkeley campus

cutest squirrel at Berkeley campus

Cecilie and Darren discussion something important (I'm guessing ;) ) at Jupiter, where we had dinner yesterday - and the day before, when we'd just arrived

tirsdag 4. august 2015

Packing - check (but in a hurry, so not really sure if I'm bringing everything I want to...)

Passport - check

ESTA - check

Print of tickets (yes, I'm old school) - check

Print of hotel booking conformation (still old school) - check

Wearing comfortable clothes - check

I think we're ready for Berkeley/San Francisco, and a week of PhD life on the other side of the Atlantic, now <3

Below is what I did yesterday, as part of my preparation for this trip - on the first picture, the dotted line is not in agreement with the black squares, but on the second picture, it's like a perfect fit :D This means that the first part of my uranium analysis is coming to an end (if you ever can say that anything in science is "coming to an end" - I guess you actually really can't...:P), and I'm really excited about this trip!